League of Legends Season 3 Worlds Championship Analysis

The Korean Monster, SK Telecom T1, defeats China’s Royal Club in the League of Legends Worlds Championships for Season 3. In a dominating 3-0 series, SKT truly proved that they are truly the best League of Legends team in the world. Even though the Riot annalists and fan base favored Royal Club, SKT’s Korean ‘hype-train’ proved to have an answer for everything Royal could come up with.

Why was this the case though? Did Royal lose in champion select, in their overall strategy, or were they simply outclassed? Was there more than just SKT’s Faker vs. Royal’s Uzi? From the notes I took on the floor of Worlds at the Staples Center on October 4th, I came up with my own analysis from each of the three games. With that said, let’s look at what happened in Game #1, Game #2, and Game #3:

Game #1

Bans

SKT:

Zed

Annie

Renekton

Royal:

Vi

Shen

Lee Sin

Picks

SKT:

Jax

Jarven

Gragas

Corki

Thresh

Royal:

Malphite

Elise

Orianna

Vayne

Sona

Analysis

At first glance of these team comps, it was quite clear what Royal was going for. SKT, however, was slightly more mysterious. With Malphite, Orianna, and Sona, Royal had a ridiculous engage and chain stun potential for team fights. All of SKT’s characters either had a leap, dash, or self-pull. This gave them incredible mobility as well as the ability to escape on a whim. Through teleports, Royal planned on having non-standard engages to catch SKT off guard. Unfortunately, this plan didn’t end up working due to SKT’s reflexes and mobility champs.

Faker, who is not particularly known as a counter picker, grabbed Gragas to counter Orianna. Royal’s 2v1 swap in top lane gave them the early momentum and first tower. However, in the process SKT’s jungler Bengi focused mid lane aggressively. After Faker and Bengi secured first blood against Orianna, Bengi knew her flash was down and rinse repeated for an early, rapid, and second kill on Wh1t3zz. These two early deaths seemed to affect Wh1tzz’s play for the rest of the game as he played back more.

SKT’s 4v2 dive bottom lane was a testament to their planning and coordination. Since their own top tower was down, they could shift someone mid to defend while the rest of the team could dive bottom. Not only did SKT pick up easy kills, they got the tower, and lost nothing in the process. Their ‘mobility comp’ also shone when they all went into the Baron Pit from the side and secured the buff before Royal could respond.

Over all, Royal couldn’t land their lock down combo due to SKT’s mobility. With Royal’s ults down, they would repeatedly get kited and burned down. Once their lead was significant, there was nothing Royal could do to fight them 5v5, and eventually was worn down. Bengi’s constant pressure and ability to completely shut down a lane early allowed for Faker to snowball and put Royal generally behind.